3/20/2013

THE CHALLENGE The company is one of thousands of small businesses that employ more than 50 full-time employees and thus will be required to offer health insurance to their workers — or pay into a government fund — beginning Jan. 1. Rachel Shein and Steve Pilarski, the married owners of the bakery, which employs 95 people, estimate this could cost their business up to $108,000, and they are weighing their options as the date approaches.

The article takes us through three options that Shein and Pilarski have to meet . . . THE CHALLENGE.

One is to buy the insurance. That’s $108,000 a year.

A second option is to pay the penalty, er, tax, er, “employer shared responsibility payment.” That, apparently, is about $120,000 a year, net ($130,000 minus $10,000 saved in not having to manage the plans).

And the third option?

Ms. Shein is considering a third option: outsourcing certain jobs to reduce the staff, because businesses with 50 or fewer employees will be exempt from the penalty. “We can outsource the cleaning and make the drivers independent contractors,” she said, “and we can cut the least profitable delivery routes, least profitable accounts or reduce the variety of items we create.”

A related idea not mentioned in the article: she could have 49 full-time employees and 50-60 part-time employees working under 30 hours per week, I suppose. It may well be that some employees are going to become exployees.

(In totally unrelated news, looks like unemployment is going to skyrocket next year. Damn those Republicans and their damn sequestration!)

Shein and Pilarski say prices may be going up about 4 per cent at their bakery. That’s probably the only business in the country that will raise prices significantly to defray the extra costs of ObamaCare. Yes, my eyes are rolling — rolling like bowling balls.

(In totally unrelated news, looks like inflation is going to take off next year. Damn those Republicans and their damn sequestration!)

The article does not mention whether these two voted for Obama. I’d be curious to know. Heck, I *am* curious to know!

Apparently we’ll find out in about a week how Shein and Pilarski plan to meet THE CHALLENGE. I’ll stay tuned for that! Don’t change that channel!!!

The family’s trouble started Saturday night when Moore received an urgent text message from his wife. The Carneys Point Police Dept. and the New Jersey Dept. of Children and Families had raided their home.

Moore immediately called Nappen and rushed home to find officers demanding to check his guns and his gun safe.

Instead, he handed the cell phone to one of the officers – so they could speak with Nappen.

“If you have a warrant, you’re coming in,” Nappen told the officers. “If you don’t, then you’re not. That’s what privacy is all about.”

With his attorney on speaker phone, Moore instructed the officers to leave his home.

“I was told I was being unreasonable and that I was acting suspicious because I wouldn’t open my safe,” Moore wrote on the Delaware Open Carry website. “They told me they were going to get a search warrant. I told them to go ahead.”

Moore took this photo of police outside his home.

Nappen told Fox News the police wanted to inventory his firearms.

“”We said no way, it’s not happening,” he said. “This is a guy who is completely credentialed and his son is also credentialed.”

Part of the problem is that the Child Protective Services people claim they are obligated to investigate every single complaint of potential child abuse, no matter how frivolous it is on its face. This “we exercise absolutely no judgment whatsoever” policy obviously makes it easy for harassers to turn peoples lives upside down. The FBI told me SWATters use this technique, and in unrelated news, at least one Brett Kimberlin supporter has called Child Protective Services on a prominent Kimberlin critic.

As a society, we need to learn how to weed out stupid and frivolous complaints without spending wads of taxpayer cash and government resources investigating nonsense. “OMG THERE IS A PICTURE OF A CHILD WITH A GUN!!!!” is not a situation that calls for a team of government officials to knock on a citizen’s door.